Copyright is (fucking) Stupid
You wouldn't download Deez Nuts.
Hey, so apologies for missing last month's blog post. I was having too good of a time over the holidays and I missed my deadline. Anyway, I've had an incredibly relaxing time with my partner and I was also able to get a few things set up around the house to make my life a little easier—namely, I slapped Ubuntu on an ancient laptop I wasn't using and turned it into a joint SFTP and Jellyfin server! Now I can upload and store all of my totally-legally-acquired-and-purchased-with-real-money-pinkie-promise media and stream it wherever and whenever I want. As a bonus, there's a handy little LastFM plugin so I can scrobble on the go! As a side note, iPhones really suck for that sort of thing, so if you're on Android and thinking of switching over, keep that in mind.
Of course, part of the reason I wanted to get this rolling was so I could wean myself off of the few streaming services I still use for music and cartoons and the like. Spotify especially. Not only does the CEO invest in war profiteers, they also just generally fuck over musical artists and don't pay them for their work while still making insane amounts of money off of their streams. Of course, since they're a major tech corporation owned and operated by the monopoly capitalist class, this is all okay. Same with the record labels that trap artists into shitty contracts, swindle them out of their royalties and the rights to the music that they created, and leave them penniless and doing county fair gigs into their 80s. But if a regular person decides to copy a file and save it to their computer without paying that same record label money? Well that's just plain wrong, goddammit!
Frankly, I think the whole thing is stupid. The system of copyright, that is. First off, HOW THE FUCK CAN ANYONE "OWN" AN IDEA? It doesn't make any goddamn sense. It's not a material thing you can pick up and take with you. It can't be "stolen" in any meaningful sense, unless you count somebody taking credit for it when they didn't come up with it. If you tell me about an idea, you can't pull it out of my brain when you don't want me to have it anymore. What gives?
Of course, some might say that copyright is an imperfect system that exists to make sure that artists, writers, and other creatives can be somewhat fairly compensated for their work. The only catch is that, in practice, it sure as shit doesn't actually do that. Basically only the tippy-top most popular music acts can make any kind of a living on royalties, with everyone else basically having to spend their whole lives touring to keep their families fed, if they can even make a living on music at all. Most visual artists outside of the fine art world basically have to sign away the rights to their work as a condition of being paid at all, and even more are screwed out of their rights à la Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. And the same is probably true for a bunch of writers as well. Functionally, copyright exists so that the capitalist class can turn art into commodities and screw over creators and consumers with impunity.
So basically what I'm saying is that internet piracy is not only sexy and cool, it's also morally correct. Hell, I'm a musician, pirate my music if you want to. Please.